Trump eyes tariffs to pressure Greenland

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

President Donald Trump said Friday that he could use tariffs in his bid to annex Greenland, an Arctic island with critical mineral reserves, proximity to shipping lanes and a strategic location.

Trump wants to buy the sparsely populated island, but hasn’t ruled out other methods for acquiring the semi-autonomous Danish territory. Officials from Denmark and Greenland have said the nation isn’t for sale and public polling shows Greenlanders don’t want to join America.

Trump said that he could use tariffs to pressure Greenland during a meeting on rural health care Friday at the White House. The U.S. president said import duties would also put pressure on U.S. allies that don’t support his plans.

“I may do that for Greenland on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security,” he said.

Officials from Greenland and Denmark visited the U.S. earlier this week to try to get Trump to stop talking about annexing the island. The meeting ended with disagreement.

Trump said U.S. ownership of Greenland is vital to national security, citing concerns that the island could otherwise be controlled by China or Russia. He has said his preference is to buy Greenland.

“I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” Trump said last week.

Greenland, where about 57,000 people live, is dependent on Danish subsidies and fishing. An independent poll done in 2025 found that about 85% of Greenlanders don’t want to join America.

Experts say as ice melts in the Arctic, more shipping and military ship routes could open in the region, changing the global trade and the defensive relationship between the U.S. and Russia. More mining and drilling exploration could also open up.

U.S. Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose said the U.S. has had a vested interest in Greenland for more than 70 years.

“Its geo-strategic importance grows by the day, by the hour,” he said at an event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute on Thursday. “Everybody that I speak with understands and acknowledges that Denmark, as wonderful as it is, is incapable of providing even a fraction of the resources that will be required to bring Greenland up to standard in terms of its infrastructure, in terms of its ability to extract rare earths.”

In 1867, when President Andrew Johnson bought Alaska, he also considered buying Greenland. The U.S. also tried to buy Greenland in 1946. The United States proposed to pay Denmark $100 million in gold to buy Greenland, according to documents in the National Archives. The sale never went through, but the U.S. got the military base it wanted on the island.

Pituffik Space Base, previously known as Thule Air Base, is located in Greenland. Pituffik SB is locked in by ice nine months out of the year, but the airfield is open and operated year-round. Pituffik exists due to agreements between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Denmark, specifically addressing mutual defense, according to the Space Force.